The Stars at Night is our favorite event of the year because it’s intimate, celebratory, community-fueled, and inspiring. It’s the most down-home, sophisticated literary spectacular on the map.

ASF’s fifth annual showcase goes virtual this year on November 30, 2020, with a stellar program line-up of acclaimed authors, debuts, and community leaders in conversation about how we can stay connected in this time of distance through a shared love of literature.
The Stars at Night 2020 Honorees
LITERARY STAR FOR EXCELLENCE: JAMAICA KINCAID

Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John’s, Antigua. Her books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, and My Brother. She lives in North Bennington, Vermont during the summers, and is Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence at Harvard University during the academic year. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Lannan Literary Award, American Book Award, and many others.

DEBUT STAR FOR FICTION: C PAM ZHANG

C Pam Zhang is the author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and is being translated into thirteen languages. Her writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, The Cut, McSweeney’s Quarterly, The New Yorker, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. In 2020, she was named a 5 Under 35 honoree by the National Book Foundation. Born in Beijing, Zhang is mostly an artifact of the United States.

GOLD STAR FOR TEACHING AND MENTORSHIP: CHARLOTTE GULLICK

Charlotte Gullick is a novelist, essayist, editor, educator, and Chair of the Creative Writing Department at Austin Community College. In May 2016, she graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Charlotte’s first novel, By Way of Water, was published by Blue Hen Books/Penguin Putnam, and her nonfiction has appeared in The Rumpus, Brevity, The Best of Brevity, Dogwood, Pembroke Magazine, Barnstorm Journal, Full Grown People, Pithead Chapel, and the LA Review. Her other awards include a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship for Fiction, a Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry, a MacDowell Colony Residency, a Ragdale Residency, as well as the Evergreen State College 2012 Teacher Excellence Award.

EMERGING TEXAS STAR: SELENA ANDERSON

Selena Anderson was born in Houston and raised in Pearland. She completed her B.A. at the University of Texas at Austin and Ph.D. at the University of Houston. Her stories have appeared in Oxford American, BOMB, Conjunctions, The Baffler, and Fence and will be reprinted in Best American Short Stories 2020 and Tiny Nightmares. She has received fellowships from the Kimbilio Center, the MacDowell Colony, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and is a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Anderson is an assistant professor at San José State University, where she also directs a reading series. She is working on a novel.